From iPhone app to Universal app, user interface considerations

Question

As I say in the title, I'm developing an iPhone app. I use nib files, I don't use any storyboard, and I know that for iPad I'll need to replace some of the controls I currently use for iPhone, since, for instance, in iPad is more suitable to use popovers in some places, and some other considerations. But I'm not sure if I'd need to create a separate nib file targeted for iPad per each nib file I have now for iPhone, or it should be just the convenient thing but not needed, or I can keep just one nib file if views are for example scroll views or table views, and just resizing things would be enough...

What I want is some guidelines to avoid redundant files and work when creating an iPad version of an existing iPhone version, and what the best practices are, since I don´t find how to handle this, programmatically speaking, neither in Apple's docs nor in posts...

Thanks in advance

EDIT. A question about dealing with icons and images: let's say I have an image view that is 50x50 in iPhone. I have two .png images for the iPhone version of this image: 50x50 and 100x100 for retina display. Let's say I need this image to be 80x80 in iPad. What should be the best way to deal with this: having 4 versions of the image (50x50, 100x100, 80x80, 160x160)? or just having the greatest versions (the 80x80 and 160x160 for iPad), and just resizing them to be smaller for iPhone? In general, what is the best practice about this, having one image file per each size you need, or just having the greater you need and fitting it to smaller sizes?

Answer 1

At xib files you should use the AutoLayout with constraints. That was introduced in ios6. The key and the war with patience and time it will be setting up correctly those constraints. One xib can be used to iPhone and iPad too, not needed 2 separate files in this way. As speed of development the 2 file are faster to develop, at least for me...

Answer 2

You can usually get away with not re-implementing a lot of .nib files to be iPad specific and just reuse your pre-existing ones. I have a lot of projects that do this.

That said... you usually have to reimplement the top level container .nib to be iPad specific and you really need to think about where you can take advantage of the larger screen size on iPad and adapt or create new .nibs as you see fit. While you're in any .nib... consider updating it to use AutoLayout if you can!!!

Using child view controllers (UIViewController has had childViewController since iOS 5.0) and other libs like for example SGBDrillDownController (you can find it in CocoaPods.org) might be things to take a look at.

On your images question... If the images scale well and don't get too anti-aliased looking when you go from largest to smallest rendition then going that route can make your life a lot easier. I have found however that to get a decent looking image it is best to use scalable vector art and then create a separate rendition for each size needed. Getting the best possible graphics possible is certainly a key to success.